24 comments:

• Personally I have not seen this fantastic four movies nor read the comics book. So I can’t tell if it was a huge disaster or if it was just another regular movie like any other. But what I do think is that Hollywood has not succeed because instead of doing the movies exactly like the comic books and / or the other media, they change their essence and try to do better, and instead of making them more interesting and bringing the book to life, they end up doing the exact opposite. And this is what disappoints the comics and books fans. They are so into the books and comics, than when they hear that a movie is coming out based in the book or novel, they have high expectations with this, and when they finally have like their dreams come true as in a movie is coming out of their favorite book series and then see the results as in a total fail, they get disappointed, and better choose to stick to the books, rather than the movies.

The trick to creating a movie or series adaptation of a book, comic book or reboot of any sorts is keeping the essence and the elements most important to the fan in them. Sometimes the spectator is waiting for a specific event to occur just the way it happened in comic book adaptations. We could sit down and talk about how much Hollywood sucks at making movie adaptations about a book but this can be the biggest challenge in any movie writer and director’s head. But, many fail because everybody has different ways of seeing everything. I had to understand this the hard way. Variety of opinions exist!Many of the failures of Hollywood in the movie adaptation business, which has been growing so much in the entertainment industry, is because many may see it as a way of generating a lot of money. Adaptations are a delicate thing to rely on sometimes, a movie may define the direction of a franchise (ask Marvel or DC. And maybe Lucasfilm). Another reason why they fail is that, maybe, a lot of these directors or writers may have not lived this as a passion when younger or may not see it as big and exciting as we may see it like fans. My final thought relies on, as mentioned before, this being the varieties of interpretation (at least in the book area). And of course, nothing will be as exciting or as amazing as when the original idea presented itself to us (ask Ghostbusters, Robocop or Alien).

I do not watch movies very often, but I have heard that usually they are not as good as the book or comic is. I think that Hollywood fails at making good movies adaptions because they try too hard to make it awesome that their minds start blowing with ideas completely different form the original ones, so they transform or change the essence. When the movie premiere comes, all fans have a great expectation, but when they watch that it is not what the thought it would be, they tell others and those others do not want to watch it anymore, so the opening revenues do not reach the rate they had expected.

I think Hollywood manages to fail at making faithful movies adaptations of books, comics, and other media because they always seem to leave out a lot of what they put in the comics or books. For an example the movie Harry Potter, anyone who has read the book can say that it was an awesome book it seemed like you were watching it in your head, your imagination was constantly rolling but when it came to the movie a lot of scenes that was read in the book was left out. Which when I compared the books to the movie, I preferred the book. But that is my opinion. Not only with this movie but with many others as well. Another reason that I can say is they already made a version of Fantastic Four released in 2005 which in the box office making $56,061,504 during its first weekend. By the end of 2005 the movie had accumulated to about $330,579,700 from theaters around the world. In my opinion I don’t ever think that replicas of a movie already made can be as good as the first one made. For an example Fast and Furious the first was really good then came 2 Fast 2 Furious which was not so good at all. Many movies the first are the best. I liked these movies very much when I was younger. Hollywood fails at making these movies just as it was first written. I think that Hollywood should consider globally customer’s ideas or opinion who take time and money to go out to buy this.

In my opinion i feel as if they fail because they leave some parts of the book out in the movie. People are expecting exact replicas of the book. So when they get to watch the movie they are disappointed. Critics are always saying that the movie doesn't compare to its books. Another reason why it fails is because maybe the directors aren't really into certain parts of the book so they just grab what they like and think would capture the audience.

People do not look for the perfect movie, what they want is not faithfulness to the book, comic etc. They are looking for an active engagement with the material, which doesn’t have to preclude faithfulness. The question filmmakers should ask is not, “How can I bring this story to the screen without losing anything?,” but “What in this book do I want to emphasize?” If you’re reading a book, I think it’s natural to home in on themes, characters, and scenes that are most meaningful to you. Granted, the big problem with something like The Hunger Games is having to make something coherent out of the narrative’s many moving parts, but a good adaptation has to make choices about what’s truly important. And it also has to exist independently from the novel: Films content with merely illustrating books are more concerned with problem-solving and translation than artistic expression. That's why it is very complex the situation regardless making good adaptations to the movies.

I think that this is such a touchy subject because when we read books we develop a preconceived notion of so many aspects of the book. What the characters look like, how they are going to interact, how the scenery is going to appear. It’s my job as an author to create these visuals for the reader, and while doing so forge an attachment between the reader and the characters. The stronger the attachment the more successful I deem the writing. If I’ve done my job in allowing my reader to willingly suspend his disbelief--the farther they have fallen for my characters--the harder it is for them to approve a film that veers too much from the plot, or the descriptions I have created. Now that I’ve become more involved in the process of bringing my books to the big screen, I’m beginning to understand more how it works. Screenwriters often times create screenplays with certain actors and locations in mind--because of the desires of the producer or the studio that has purchased the book rights. It’s this type of writing and adaptation that can often cause the scripts to veer from the actual plot and character descriptions. This very process can infuriate readers who can already visualize who the main character is, or how or what a location looks like. It’s unfortunate in that respect, and I feel for the readers, but my hands are tied. I really leave the large part of the film-making process up to the filmmakers. I let them do what they are good at and I focus on what I am good at. If they decide that one actor is better than another to play a main character, I let that be up to them. I also know that there is a lot more to the process than just asking or auditioning an actor to be in your movie. Just as there is a lot more that goes into writing a book than just sitting down and plunking away at keys. Adapting a book is first and foremost a work of exploitation. The author of the book deserves all the credit for coming up with the story. If you're going to use his/her work for mercantile purposes hidden behind false motives of wanting to show that work to a wider audience, the least you can do is try to be as faithful as possible to the original ideas of the author.

These days you could hear someone say: it’s all about the money. Looking at the economic conditions of certain countries, well why would they think otherwise. Taking this in consideration id have to say that it’s all about what brings more business. According to the response they get from consumers with the book, they can decide whether they want to change the original version or keep it the same for a potential better response. Thinking like a business owner that would be something logical to do. However, the matter at hand is that the movie adaptations aren’t faithful to the books. My opinion on this would be that there are various factors that could determine what gets to be in the movie and what doesn’t.Movie makers follow their boss’s orders, in this case the producer/director of the movie. The people in charge, the ones who decide how what goes in the movie, what doesn’t and what they add are the ones id consider responsible for the failure or success of the movie. From movie to movie the reasons may vary, I’d have to do a little research on this in order to know what the reasons are but I can infer several reasons. Year after year they create movies. Some opening way for others. I can imagine that sometimes they try not to be predictive. Predictive is boring. Some may think, if you already read the book, why go see the movie if it’s exactly the same. Also I think that some of the stuff that comes out in the comic books, wouldn’t be very cost efficient to try and do for a movie. So this could be a reason why they keep changing things up and continue to fail.

Once again, I’m not a superhero movie fan so I haven’t read comics or know pretty much anything about this movie. I think there could be many different explanations of why a movie fails. It might be that the directors and producers change the essence of that particular series or type of movie, they might change the story, the character or something else. I also think Hollywood needs to start being more original, make some original movies and don’t waste so much efforts and money on reboots and sequels. It’s like Hollywood is scared of doing new things, going through some new boundaries. They want to stay in their “comfort zone” and people aren’t liking it anymore.

Why do you think that Hollywood still manages to fail at making a faithful movie adaptation of books, comic, and other media: What is the cause?

The movie industry has a time limit based on movies. Books bring a lot of content and they have very little time to do it and some time the resources can not be found. The Harry Potter movies are excellent but if you actually take the chance to read the book the fact are either minor or simply not “important” to the producers. The imagination of a writer can go wild because they are simply writing it on paper. Movie producer can do so much but they need to make changes because sometimes the people they want, can’t be found. They have to consider if the movie will win money or it will become a complete loss on money. Books have so much product and information that sometimes it will make the movie a bit too long, theater wise.

You’d think this was originally an attempt at bringing beloved characters back to the big screen instead of a cash-grab, but the look on most of the actors’ faces proved that idea wrong faster than the critics gave it a thumb down. It’s weird that with superheroes being all the rage, they would actually try with this movie as well, but since most superhero movies are in a way formulaic, (just give them a bad guy to beat at the end and have them shout their catchphrases) they probably figured that it was an easy thing to do. Just because types of movies have a certain formula to them doesn’t mean they don’t have effort thrown in. If you watch how they make these Marvel movies, there’s a lot of effort thrown in and the actors have chemistry at this point, so the movie’s fun despite the fact that there’s a formula behind it. This is kind of the reason most YA movies tend to fall short, because there’s already a formula, the directors feel more concerned with following the instruction manual than actually trying to make something they find interesting or fun. I don’t know if this is the case with most of these failed adaptations, but if you look at adaptations like the Harry Potter franchise, War of the Worlds, and most Marvel movies, you can tell that they actually try to not only be faithful to the source material, but to make something that you will enjoy.

Hollywood is a machine that is less interested in authenticity as it is in what looks good. Comic books, novels and other media have been used as inspiration for many a on screen film in the past 25 years much to the enjoyment of some and the horror of others. Hollywood seems to be like a baby with a high powered machine gun shooting off rounds into the darkness at times. Some hit their marks and others don't. Sometimes you get a Spider-Man others times you get a X-Men the Last Stand. The difference between them seems to always be the freedom to let directors/writers/ & producers create without the interference of the studio. The bigger the commodity of the content being produced becomes the more the studio becomes involved which either bolsters the movie or makes it worse. For example; the first of every movie series is always usually it's best or most entertaining. Why? cause the creators get freedom with the characters due to it being an unknown commodity. The studio doesn't know what it is yet so the creative team is allowed to make it into something tangible but if becomes a hit success the studio then demands more control because it puts more money into the project. Many films have failed under the weight of this cat and mouse game studios play with film adaptations. The adaptation has to be something marketable and that more often then not means less content and more visual context. The best adapted movies are ones where the creators are allowed to do whatever they want with the film and this is why many of these films fail cause they aren't allowed that.

Why do you think Hollywood still manages to fail at making faithful movie adaptations of books, comics, and other media?

i think theres nothing new anymore. In the 70s, 80s, 90s, there was so much creativity going around. those movies were so good we have had to "bring" them back, because we are such babies when it comes to the "Good old days". we have reached a creativity plateau when it comes to movies and its also reflecting in art and music, where nothing new is invented its just remakes, remixes and blending styles. its kinda makes me sad that we cant move own to better things. is it possible that we are in a "limbo" era and the new creative era will pop in 2020 with Kanye as president? maybe. I think some of these remakes fail because many movie companies are playing our own nostalgias and they make tons of money off of us who love the "back in the day". but for the most part i do believe that remakes are good because of technology we can see the remake get a facelift and transcend into a new era of fans.

I think Hollywood failes at making adaptations of the book it's because the producers of Hollywood change many things of the book begin to create fanatic scenes completely evading the essence and originality of the book and whem the reader sees the movie they expects an exact replica of the book and it being totally different creates some disappointment because its not what they expected, In my opinion books are better because it lets you escape from the real world to you own.

The biggest problem isn't that the movie writers create scripts that are lacking, or deviate greatly from the book, in some cases this is the truth; but in my opinion I see two major reasons why we wont be sufficed with the movies. One, I believe that our imagination ruins the movie for us, we create this amazing movie while reading, bringing it to life in almost every detail, just in a way that will impact us the most. A movie writer does just that, he rewrites the story in the way that impacts him the most. When we watch these movies after reading the book, we find the book so much better because we created a movie in our minds that was better: So much better. Second problem, writers can't include every detail in the movie. The movie would take hours, the more information a writer places in the book the more money and time it would take to reproduce in the movie. So its not that Hollywood is failing at creating faithful movie adaptations of books, instead its making a close representation of what the writer sees when creating the script, plus, it's an adaptation, it's not meant to be word for word. If that's what we are after why not download the audio-books instead. We watch these movies, to finally put a picture to the words that the author has written, but, it shouldn't be that way. We should watch the movie to see what the writer of the script has chosen to include. Then judge the movie based on the acting and storyline, not based on how accurately it represented the book.

The biggest problem isn't that the movie writers create scripts that are lacking, or deviate greatly from the book, in some cases this is the truth; but in my opinion I see two major reasons why we wont be sufficed with the movies. One, I believe that our imagination ruins the movie for us, we create this amazing movie while reading, bringing it to life in almost every detail, just in a way that will impact us the most. A movie writer does just that, he rewrites the story in the way that impacts him the most. When we watch these movies after reading the book, we find the book so much better because we created a movie in our minds that was better: So much better. Second problem, writers can't include every detail in the movie. The movie would take hours, the more information a writer places in the book the more money and time it would take to reproduce in the movie. So its not that Hollywood is failing at creating faithful movie adaptations of books, instead its making a close representation of what the writer sees when creating the script, plus, it's an adaptation, it's not meant to be word for word. If that's what we are after why not download the audio-books instead. We watch these movies, to finally put a picture to the words that the author has written, but, it shouldn't be that way. We should watch the movie to see what the writer of the script has chosen to include. Then judge the movie based on the acting and storyline, not based on how accurately it represented the book.

Why do you think Hollywood still manages to fail at making faithful movie adaptations of books, comics, and other media? What is the cause?I guess it has a lot to do with what they think are the most important parts of the book, and what will interest the viewers the most. Also, I fell like most people don't read that much anymore, so they just focus on trying to “improve” the areas that they think they can make better. Like I remember finishing a book and then going to the theater to watch the movie the next day and there was so much that bothered me because I was like, that's not supposed to be like that. I just noticed so much that had been changed and I noticed so many little details that wouldn't mean anything to someone who didn't read the book. I still have to say that it was a good movie, I was just expecting more of a better visual and actual representation of the smaller details in the book.

i believe that they do this because people does not read that much anymore. Maybe its because some people find it more interesting to watch a movie than reading a comic book. there are just a few people that love comic books there are not much. i mean in my case i do love to read novels, stories etc... but i really prefer a hundred times the movies than reading a comic book i really find them insane, but people really like them and they die for them.

The book market is widespread and has many niches. There are hundreds of publishers and each have a different type of project they’d like to publish. There are only 7 studios and they all want exactly the same thing. Most books just aren’t adaptable or rather they shouldn´t be adapted. Most people’s true stories aren´t cinematically interesting or commercial. You have to be realistic about your material and realize if that biography about the man who created the soybean you wrote is really commercial or visual or cinematic enough to be worthy of an adaptation. Be aware that you will probably have to cut many supporting characters, subplots that don’t connect to your main storyline, and almost all of the description. Instead of two pages of character description, you only get two lines. Often, two or three different characters in a novel will be combined into one character in a screenplay. And what happens on the first page of the book may not be how you need to open the film. Try to nail the same tone that the original material had as that is part of what built its fan base and that tone needs to translate on film. But the real key to adapting a book to film or adapting someone’s true story is focus and knowing how and when to take poetic license. If you are adapting a true story, it becomes even trickier, but you need to know that changing the timeline of the original story is OK. Your primary job isn’t to be loyal to a book or to another writer or even to the main character it’s to be loyal to the core story and yourself. You can’t show a whole lifetime on screen, so you need to choose the most important, interesting, conflict-filled, character-building part of the book or the person’s life and focus on that to create a tight story.

Why do you think Hollywood still manages to fail at making faithful movie adaptations of books, comics, and other media? What is the cause?

We can mention that Hollywood stock in a vision. That they achieve a goal and stops there. They think that if they achieved a goal, they going to receive the same input with all their movies. The public it’s every time harder to pleased. So they had to recreate the ideas of present their scenes and stuff like that. To recreate a movie from a book it’s very hard for the director. The most important things in the books are the details, and sometimes the director fails in that part of representing the details correctly. Continuing in that line we can mention that there’s no an existent movie that it’s created after a book original story and it’s better than the book. Hollywood it’s trying hard to make great movies based on stories or comics, but they still failing because of the details. There are a lot of persons that prefer to read a comic or a book before seeing a movie, so they can know the real details behind the movie. The comics or books give us the personal feeling of understanding it in a more intimate way of thinking.

Hollywood is a multimillionaire industry. By this mean the only thing that they want is to gain more money in any way, the more they have, the more they want. Sometimes they are so desperate for money that they can’t make up a good movie theme. When they decide or announce a movie based on a comic book or a story from a book, fans want to watch it because they want to see the effects and the description of the scenes in movement, “in the movie”. I don’t know why this industry changes the story in a bad way. Mabey they think that they are going to make the story better, but the truth is that most of the time they end up messing it up making the movie a total disappointment. This can be a problem for them because in this big fan disappointments Hollywood loses a lot of money. That’s why they have to analyses the story before they convert it into a movie. An example of a movie fail is the new fantastic four movie. One thing that bothers fans was that they change the actors. Having the old actors’ continuo the sequel of the movie makes them perfect for the role. Another thing that make it a fail was that the new actors didn’t act like the original superheroes supposed to act. But the worst thing that I think fans hated the most, that they change almost completely the story of the fantastic four.

Recalling all the books I’ve read and the movie adaptations there has been for certain books, there is not one situation where the movie is better than the book. This is mainly because in a book there is so much detail and you can’t smash all of it in a movie because it would be too long. I understand that in a movie you can’t do such a thing so I tend to not criticize that much, however what does bother me is when they change specific objects, people or places that were described in the book, if its describe the way it’s supposed to be, I don’t know why they change their appearance. Another factor that’s influences a lot in a movie is the script writers and the producers/directors because they try to reduce all the plot into a shorter amount of time and it doesn’t always work out and they also see things differently, so what we like is not the same other people like. It’s not possible to please everyone. The reality is that it’s not easy to make a book into the movie. That’s why it’s better to make books into series, George R. R. Martin understands this when he denied his books to be made into movies, because the amount of detail was going to be left out, and thus creating the best series of them all; Game of Thrones.

I think that they try to find the most important parts according to them of the book and what can impact people according to their concepts of the book. But I think that for people who read these books this can be a little frustrating, because they will be comparing the book with the movie all the time, and they will see the differences in the story. But for a person who does not read the stories books will not give much importance to this. I also think that it is because you have to hoard everything of the book in a movie that can last as long as 2 hours, it will be less detailed and this will bothered those who have already read these books.

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